Tedium of Final Round 16

Final Round took place this weekend, and it was absolutely astounding. The venue was filled with an incredible amount of talent and upsets were rampant throughout the tournament. So many close matches, so much stress, and so much excitement. The finals of each game was a thrill to watch, and had all the stream warriors on the edge of their seats; that is, at least until it hit the MvC 3 finals.

Overall, the Marvel top 8 had a few decent moments. Watching Moons make multiple comebacks with Amaterasu against Dieminion’s all-too-lame team had me giving an audible cheer at the end of each round, and seeing Flocker trounce current evo winner Filipino Champ was nice to see. Unfortunately, the Flocker-Champ matchup was the last exciting one, as ChrisG proceeded to run a clinic, spending the rest of the tournament winning 9 straight fights without even leaving his seat. Chris G took almost every game convincingly, and you could feel all the hype disappear with each victory. Flocker came close twice, one time using Morrigan himself, but each time Chris bounced back and the anti-hype returned. While Infiltration won the AE finals convincingly against Ryan Hart, he was using Akuma. I find Akuma much more entertaining to watch than Morrigan, so I still found some solace in that match.

It was embarrassing. A game normally rife with unexpected moments and upsets was completely dominated by one man who has been taking every Marvel tournament he has entered convincingly for the past several months, and it is all thanks to the dynamic duo entitled “Morridoom.” This is where my main criticism lies; Morridoom is insufferable to watch. They are a zoning team, which means Chris sits on the other side of the screen spamming ranged attacks until the audience falls asleep and he inevitably wins. Zero may seem overpowered, but at least he is required to go on the offensive to win the match

The lack of thrill may be the reason why brackets are not rampant with the lame team. Back when Dark Phoenix was the juggernaut, at least fifty percent of all top 8 teams had a Phoenix as an anchor. Everyone jumped ship because it was practically a guaranteed win. I have been expecting the same thing to happen with Morridoom, but they are not showing up in many of the higher skilled teams, which I am very grateful for. I cannot even imagine sitting through a top 16 with more than 4 teams containing Morrigan, let alone both her and Doctor Doom.

Hopefully by the time Evo rolls around some of the top players will have figured out anti-Morridoom technology. Otherwise, the Evo finals are going to be equally as mundane, except this time a million people will be bored out of their minds at an event that should have them writhing in anticipation.

It's not that Morridoom is overpowered and breaks the game it's that ChrisG is one of, if not the, best players on the scene right now.

I rarely watch tournaments aside from majors anymore, so I'm not sick of Chris like I used to be. I actually find myself rooting for him more often than not since he's so on point everytime he plays. Morrigan is primarily used for zoning, but I think Chris can be really agressive with her which is exciting to watch.

I missed FR though, been meaning to watch it, maybe I'll feel differently afterwards.

Yeah, Chris G sucked the hype out of the room with his dominating performance. I don't mind Morridoom, but I could only barely watch the last few matches. Chris G just swept everybody. I don't feel that anyone at this point in time can match Chris G and his team.

I felt tired with the AE finals as well, with Infiltration also winning handily over Ryan Hart. I definitely hope someone can match Chris G and Infiltration at Evo.

There were some good finals for other games, though. Sethlolol vs Infiltration in SFxT was pretty good, and the TTT2 grand finals, JDCR vs Knee, was an absolutely incredible display of Tekken.

If you think UMvC3 is boring right now you would have been bored to fucking tears with year 1-2 of MvC2.

• In Chris G's defence, he beat FChamp's level 3 X-Factor Dark Phoenix using pure rushdown, no fear. That is a feat in of itself, regardless of the fact that the very characters he used to rush FChamp down with was MorriDoom.
• As a UKer and a Sagat player, I was super hype for Ryan Hart getting to the Grand Final of AE. And to be honest, though he lost to Infiltration, I'm just happy that he didn't get 6-0ed (Infiltration was in Losers). Sagat vs. Akuma is not easy at the best of times, never-mind against the most dominant player in the past 12 months.
• As Spooky said, the Street Fighter X Tekken Grand Final was the best set he (and I) had ever seen.
• Tekken Tag 2 finals were awesome, but extremely loooooooong

Thanks to everyone who checked out my FR16 preview (, PAX East News round-up and Maximilian YouTube news) blog beforehand, keep an eye out on the GB EVO forum for previews of NorCal Regionals, UFGT9, CEO 2013 and EVO 2013.

UMvC3 was hype as fuck for the most part. Moons and dat Nova tech. Chris G is just good. I don't understand why people are failing to grasp that.

You can say Morridoom breaks the game (or comes close to it) when top 8 is totally full of it.

and finals are always somewhat boring when it's a walkover, that's why, it isn't because of Morridoom. It's because it was one sided as hell.

@meganeagain said:

I meant to address this. The AE finals did not bother me as much because, while Infiltration won convincingly, he was using Akuma. I find Akuma much more entertaining to watch than Morrigan, so I still found some solace in that match.

@flstyle: Thanks for the info. I missed the SFxT finals and had no idea they were hype, I will definitely check them out.

@unhappycanadian: It was the very first Top 8 so it's not surprising a lot of people missed it, version 2013 is so much more viewer friendly.